Carnal Innocence (21 page)

“You keep that wine chilled, sugar. I’ll be back.”

As Caroline watched him shoot backward down her lane, she wondered why that brief, cocky statement had sounded so much like a threat.

Josie and Crystal sat in their favorite booth in the Chat ’N Chew. Their excuse was dinner, but since both of them were on a perpetual diet, the reason was gossip.

Josie poked at her chicken salad with little interest. What she wanted was a thick steak and a side of nice greasy fries. But she worried about her body. She was past thirty now, and watched vigilantly for any sags or droops or paunches.

Her mama had kept a trim, willowy figure up to the day she’d dropped dead in her roses. Josie intended to do no less.

Since the day she’d realized her mama was different from her daddy, Josie had been in a subtle and constant competition. It had made her feel guilty from time to time, but she hadn’t been able to resist the need to be as pretty as her mother. Then prettier. To be as desirable to men. Then more desirable.

She’d never been able to get a handle on her mother’s quiet dignity, had failed miserably in trying to emulate it in her first marriage, so she had chosen to copy her father’s bold and bawdy talk instead. She felt it suited her—the stunning femme-fatale looks and the earthy personality. As a child she’d fit the pieces of herself together. Now the puzzle of Josie Longstreet was linked tight.

While Josie toyed with her chicken salad, Crystal made short work of her tuna-stuffed tomato. Crystal was chattering the whole time she forked the tuna into her mouth. As she had all of her life, Josie turned the sound on and off.

She was fond of Crystal, had been since they’d made the solemn decision to be best friends back in first grade, when they’d been two privileged little girls with no idea how radically their lives would diverge. Josie going one way—debutante balls and that first, proper marriage. Crystal going another, after her lawyer father ran off to parts unknown with his secretary. Her path had been the work force and a bad marriage that had ended in divorce after a second miscarriage.

But they had remained friends. Whenever Josie swept back into Innocence, she always spent time with Crystal. Josie was sentimental enough to want a childhood friend in her adult life. And she liked the way they complemented each other. Crystal was tiny and nicely
rounded while Josie herself was tall and slim. Crystal had white skin dashed with a sprinkle of freckles. She’d spent a fortune on every freckle remover on the market until she’d finally accepted them as a personality trait. She’d learned to care for her skin in Madame Alexandra’s Beauty School in Lamont, where she’d graduated third in her class and had the certificate to prove it.

As a result, she had the blooming complexion of a milkmaid, which was the perfect foil for Josie’s dusky Gypsy looks. Her hair, which she changed every few months as a kind of walking advertisement for her skills, was currently Clairol’s Sparkling Sherry, which she wore in a viciously lacquered modified beehive. Crystal insisted they were coming back.

“And then, when Bea was doing Nancy Koons’s nails, that Justine started going on about how Will told her the FBI figured out it was a black that killed Edda Lou and the others. How they knew it ’cause of the way they were killed, and how they’d found this pubic hair and all.” Crystal dug into her tomato, daintily tipping the tuna onto her fork with her pinky. “Now, I don’t know if that’s the way it was or not, but I don’t think it was right for her to be going on like that with Bea—who’s black as the ace of spades—sitting there filing nails. I was real embarrassed, Josie, but Bea, she just asks Nancy if she wants ridge filler, and keeps on filing.”

Josie sucked on her straw. “Justine’s so besotted with Will, if he told her a frog shits gold nuggets, she’d be panning for them in Little Hope Creek.”

“That’s no excuse,” Crystal said righteously. “I mean, we all know it probably was a colored, but you won’t find me talking about it in front of Bea. Why, Bea’s my best operator. So I gave Justine’s hair a jerk and when she squealed, I said, just as nice as you please: ’Oh, honey, did that hurt? I’m
awful
sorry. All that talk about murder and all just makes me so nervous. Good thing I didn’t clip your earlobe while I was trimming. A clipped ear bleeds worse’n a stuck pig.’” Crystal smiled. “That shut her right up.”

“Maybe I’ll talk Will into driving me home tonight.”
Josie tossed back her mane of hair. “That’ll give Justine something to squeal about.”

Crystal gave one of her quick, birdlike laughs. “Oh, Josie. You’re such a one.” Her eyes shifted as the diner’s door swung open. Poking out her lip, she leaned closer to Josie. “There’s that Darleen Talbot coming in with her baby.” She sniffed and sucked her Coke dry. “There’s trash and there’s trash, I say.”

Josie’s gaze flicked up as Darleen walked by to settle herself in a booth. “Billy T. Bonny, huh?”

“Speaking of trash.” And Crystal dearly loved to. “Just like I told you, I saw him saunter right on in Darleen’s kitchen door not ten minutes after Junior went out the front. And all she was wearing was a little pink baby-doll nightgown when she let him in. I saw them clear through Susie Truesdale’s kitchen window. There I was, rinsing Susie’s hair in the sink. Now, that Susie, she keeps a spotless kitchen, let me tell you, even with all those kids. If her youngest hadn’t had a sick stomach, she’d have come on in the shop for her usual wash and style, and I wouldn’t have seen a thing.”

“What did Susie say?”

“Well, her head was in the sink, but when I was blowing her dry, I mentioned it, real casual like. And I could see by the way she looked that she knew. But she just said she never paid any mind to what went on next door.”

“So Darleen’s cheating on Junior with Billy T.” Josie’s lips curved around her straw. Her eyes took on that deep, faraway glow that warned Crystal something was up.

“You’re thinking, Josie.”

“I was doing just that, Crystal. I was thinking that Junior’s got a sweet face even if he is a little bit dim. And I’m real fond of him.”

“Shoot.” Crystal poked at the remains of her tomato. “Far as I know, he’s about the only man in town between twenty and fifty you’ve never looked twice at.”

“I can be fond of a man without wanting to do it with him.” Josie examined her straw. There was a smear of red on the tip. “Seems to me somebody ought to give him a little hint about what’s happening in his own house when he’s not around to see it.”

“I don’t know, Josie.”

“I know, and that’s enough.” She dug in her bag for a pad and pen. “Let’s see now. I’ll just write him a little note, and you can get it to him.”

“Me?” Crystal squeaked, then looked guiltily around. “How come I have to do it?”

“Because everybody knows you stop at the station on your way home to buy yourself a Milky Way bar.”

“Well, sure, but—”

“So when you go in,” Josie continued, busily writing, “all you have to do is distract Junior while he’s got the cash register open. Then you drop this on in and scoot out. Easy as pie.”

“You know I always get a rash under my arms when I get nervous.” Crystal thought she could already feel her skin prickling.

“Two seconds, and you’re all done.” When she saw Crystal wavering, Josie brought out the big guns. “I told you, didn’t I, how Darleen was saying that color you used on her hair turned brassy and she was going to save her money by doing it herself with Miss Clairol? She said right out that it was a crime for you to charge seventeen fifty for a color job when all anyone had to do was pick up a box for five dollars and do it themselves.”

“That little bitch has no right talking that way to my customers.” Crystal was fired up now. “Why, she’s got hair like a Brillo pad, and if I’ve told her once, I’ve told her a thousand times, she’s got to have a professional tend to it or else it’ll start falling right out of her head.” She sniffed. “Hope it does.”

Josie smiled and waved the note in front of Crystal’s nose. Glaring, Crystal snatched it.

“Just look at her,” Crystal continued. “Sitting there putting on lipstick while that baby smears ice cream all over itself.”

Casually, Josie turned her head. She started to remark that Darleen would look better herself, smeared with a little cherry vanilla. The glint of the gold case on the tube of lipstick stopped her.

“Now, isn’t that funny,” she murmured.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’ll be right back, Crystal.” Josie rose, and trailing a finger over the back of the booths, strolled up to Darleen. “Hey, Darleen. This baby of yours sure is getting big.”

“He’s eight months now.” Surprised and flattered that Josie had come over, Darleen set the lipstick aside to wipe ineffectually at Scooter’s face with a paper napkin. Infuriated by the interruption, he howled. Josie eyed the lipstick case while Darleen and the baby fussed at each other.

It wasn’t a mistake, she thought. No indeedy. She’d bought that lipstick in Jackson, at the Elizabeth Arden counter. That gold case had caught her eye, and that particular shade of red.

Hers was missing, too. And had been since … since the night she’d gotten plowed—in more ways than one—in the embalming room of Palmer’s with Teddy Rubenstein. She’d come home, Josie remembered, and had dropped her purse getting out of the car. Everything had spilled out.

And the next day Tucker had wrecked his car because somebody’d poked holes in some lines.

“That’s a pretty lipstick you’ve got there, Darleen. Looks good on you.”

Josie’s eyes had taken on a hard, hunting edge, but Darleen heard only the compliment. “Red lipstick’s sexy, I think. A man likes to see a woman’s lips coming.”

“I like red myself, and I never saw that shade before. Where’d you get it?”

“Oh.” Darleen flushed a little, but was flattered enough to pick up the case and turn it around in the light. “It was a present.”

Josie’s grin was fiercely jovial. “My, I do love presents. Don’t you?”

She turned without waiting for an answer and strode out past a baffled Crystal.

Fifteen minutes later Tucker, who was resting after three hard-fought games of Parcheesi, had his peace
disturbed when Josie shook him awake and poured out her story.

Blinking against the last slants of sunlight, he tried to get his mushy brain around it.

“Just slow down, Jose, for chrissake. I’m not even awake yet.”

“Then wake up, goddammit.” She gave him a shove that nearly tilted him out of the hammock. “I’m telling you Billy T. Bonny’s the one who messed with your car, and I want to know what you’re going to do about it.”

“You’re telling me he used lipstick to poke holes in my hydraulic and brake lines?”

“No, you peabrain.” She took a breath and went through the whole business again.

“Honey, just because Darleen had the same color lipstick as you—”

“Tucker.” Patience wasn’t one of Josie’s virtues, and she punched him, hard. “A woman knows her own lipstick when she sees it.”

He rubbed his arm, willing to concede the point. “You could’ve dropped it anyplace.”

“I did not drop it anyplace, I dropped it right over there in the drive. I used it the night I went out with Teddy, and I didn’t have it the next morning. Or my mother-of-pearl fold-up mirror either.” Fury flared in her eyes. “The bitch’s probably got that, too.”

With a sigh, Tucker rose. It wasn’t likely he’d be able to get in another nap. He wasn’t mad yet, only because it all seemed a little farfetched.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll go pass this along to Burke.”

Josie slapped her hands on her hips. “Daddy’d have gone and stuck a rifle barrel up Billy T.’s ass.”

Tucker turned, and though his face remained calm, his eyes weren’t. “I’m not Daddy, Josie.”

She was sorry immediately and rushed over to throw her arms around him. “Honey, that was awful of me. I didn’t mean it, either. It just makes me so mad, that’s all.”

“I know.” He gave her a squeeze. “Let me handle
it my own way.” He drew back to kiss her. “Next time I’m in Jackson, I’ll buy you a new lipstick.”

“Ruthless Red.”

“You just go on in and relax now. I’m going to take your car.”

“Okay. Tuck?” When he turned back, she was smiling again. “Maybe Junior’ll shoot his nuts off.”

T
ucker tried the sheriff’s office first, but found only Barb Hopkins, the part-time dispatcher, at her little desk in the corner and her six-year-old, Mark, who was playing jailbird in one of the two cells.

“Hey, Tuck.” Barb, who’d put on about fifty pounds since she’d graduated with Tucker from Jefferson Davis High, shifted her girth and put down the paperback novel she’d been reading. Her round, jolly face creased into smiles. “We got ourselves some excitement ‘round here, don’t we?”

“Looks like.” Tucker had always had a fondness for Barb, who’d married Lou Hopkins at nineteen and had proceeded to give birth to a boy child every two years thereafter until Mark arrived, at which point she’d told Lou he could either get his dick clipped or take up residence on the sofabed. “Where’s the rest of your brood, Barb?”

“Oh, they’re running around town, raising hell.” He paused by the cell to look in on the grimy-faced, towheaded Mark. “So, whatcha in for, boy?”

“I kilt ’em.” Mark grinned evilly and shook the bars.
“I
kilt ’em all, but there ain’t no jail can hold me.”

“I’ll bet. We got ourselves a dangerous criminal here, Barb.”

“Don’t I know it. I come down this morning, and he’d done turned up the heater on the aquarium and fried every living guppy in there. I got a psychopathic fish-murderer on my hands.” She dug into the bag of cheese balls on the desk and munched. “So what can I do for you, Tuck?”

“Looking for Burke.”

“He deputized a few of the boys, then he and Carl took them out to look for Austin Hatinger. County sheriff come down, too, in his ’copter. We got ourselves a regular manhunt. Wasn’t so much him taking a few shots at you and blowing out that Caroline Waverly’s windows,” Barb said complacently. “But he dented that county deputy’s head pretty good, and embarrassed the shit out of the other one. Now Austin’s an escaped felon. He’s in big trouble.”

“The FBI?”

“Oh, Special Agent Suit-and-Tie? Well, he’s leaving this business pretty much up to the local boys. Went out with them for form’s sake, but he was more interested in his interviews.” She took another handful of cheese balls. “I happened to see one of them lists he makes. Looked like he wanted to talk to Vernon Hatinger, Toby March, Darleen Talbot, and Nancy Koons.” Barb licked salt off her fingers. “You, too, Tuck.”

“Yeah, I figured he’d get around to me again. Can you call Burke up on that thing?” He pointed to her radio. “Find out where he is and if he’s got a minute for me?”

“Sure can. They took walkie-talkies.” Obligingly, Barb wiped her orange-smeared fingers, fiddled with some dials, cleared her throat, then clicked on her mike. “This is base calling unit one. Base calling unit one. Over.” She put her hand over the mike and grinned at Tuck. “That Jed Larsson said how we should use code names like Silver Fox and Big Bear. Ain’t he a one?” With a shake of her head she leaned down to the mike again. “Base calling unit one. Burke honey, Y’all out there?”

“Unit one, base. Sorry, Barb, had my hands full. Over.”

“I got Tucker here in the office, Burke, says he needs to talk to you.”

“Well, put him on, then.”

Tucker bent down to the mike. “Burke, I got something I need to run by you. Can I come on out?”

There was a sharp whine of feedback, a protesting oath, and a scratching of static. “I’m pretty tied up right now, Tuck, but you can ride on down to where Dog Street Road runs off into Lone Tree. We got a roadblock set up there. Over.”

“I’ll be right along.” He looked doubtfully at the mike. “Ah, over and out.”

Barb grinned at him. “If I was you, I’d keep a shotgun across my lap. Austin got himself two Police Specials this morning.”

“Yeah, thanks, Barb.”

As Tucker walked out, Mark rattled his cage and shouted gleefully: “I kilt ’em. I kilt ’em all!”

Tucker shuddered. He wasn’t thinking about fish.

He spotted two ’copters circling on his way out of town. A trio of men spread out like a long V over old Stokey’s field. Another group was making a sweep of Charlie O’Hara’s catfish farm. Every one of them was armed.

It reminded Tucker miserably of the search for Francie. Before he could prevent it, her dead, white face floated into his mind. On an oath he fumbled for a cassette. It was with relief that he realized he hadn’t punched in Tammy Wynette or Loretta Lynn—two of Josie’s favorites—but Roy Orbison.

The plaintive, silvery notes of “Crying” calmed him. They weren’t out looking for a body, he assured himself. They were just hunting up an idiot. An idiot with a pair of .38s.

On the long straight road he could see the barricade five miles before he came to it. It occurred to him that if
Austin came tooling down this way in Birdie’s Buick, he’d have the same advantage. The wooden blockades were painted bright orange and glowed in the quieting sunlight. Behind them, two county cruisers sat nose to nose like two big black-and-white dogs sniffing each other.

Ranged along the shoulder of the road were Jed Larsson’s shiny new Dodge pick-up—between the store and the catfish, Jed was doing real well—Sonny Talbot’s truck with its big round lights hooked to the roof like a pair of yellow eyes, Burke’s cruiser, and Lou Hopkins’s Chevy van.

Lou’s van was dusty as an old hound. Someone had scrawled
WASH ME!
through the grime on the rear window.

As Tucker slowed, he noted that two county boys stepped forward, rifles oiled and ready. Though he didn’t think they’d shoot first and ask questions later, he was grateful when Burke waved them off.

“You got yourself a real operation here, don’t you?” Tucker commented as he stepped out.

“County sheriff’s spitting fire,” Burke muttered. “He didn’t like it that the FBI was around to see this screw-up. He thinks Austin’s halfway to Mexico by now, but he doesn’t want to say so.”

Tucker took out his cigarettes, offered one to Burke, then lighted one of his own. “What do you think?”

Burke blew out a long, slow stream of smoke. It had been a hellishly long day, and he was glad to talk to Tucker.

“Seems to me if a man knew the swamps and rivers around here, he could lay low for a good long time. ’Specially if he had a reason to.” He eyed Tucker. “We’re going to post a couple of uniforms at Sweetwater.”

“Shit on that.”

“Gotta do it, Tuck. Come on now.” He dropped a hand on Tucker’s shoulder. “You got women out there.”

Tucker looked across to where the long flat gave way to trees, and trees to swamp. “What a fucking mess.”

“It is that.”

Something in Burke’s voice had Tucker looking back at him. “What else is on your mind?”

“Ain’t this enough?”

“I’ve known you too long, son.”

Burke glanced behind him, then edged a few more feet away from the county deputies. “Bobby Lee came by the house last night.”

“Now, there’s news.”

Burke looked miserably at Tucker. “He wants to marry Marvella. Got his gumption up and asked to speak to me in private. We went on out on the back porch. Shit, Tuck, it scared me bloodless. I was afraid he was going to tell me he’d gotten her pregnant, then I’d’ve had to kill him or something.” He saw Tucker’s grin and answered it weakly. “Yeah, I know, I know. But it’s different when it’s your little girl. Anyway—” He blew in smoke, chuffed it out. “He didn’t get her pregnant. I guess kids’re smarter today about being protected and all. I remember driving clear into Greenville to buy rubbers when I was courting Susie.” His grin was a little stronger. “Then when we got into the backseat of my daddy’s Chevy, I left them in my pocket.” The grin faded. “Of course, if I’d have remembered them, we wouldn’t have had Marvella.”

“What did you tell him, Burke?”

“Shit, what could I tell him?” He rested a hand absently on the butt of his gun. “She’s grown up on me. She wants him, and that’s that. He’s got a decent job at Talbot’s, and he’s a good boy. He’s crazy in love with her, and I’ve gotta figure he’ll do right. But it damn near breaks my heart.”

“How’d Susie take it?”

“Cried buckets.” On a sigh, Burke tossed down the cigarette and stamped it out. “And when Marvella started in on how they were thinking of moving to Jackson, I thought she’d flood the house. Then she and Marvella cried together awhile. When they dried up, they started talking about bridesmaid’s dresses. I left them to it.”

“Getting old sucks, huh?”

“That’s the truth.” But he felt better having gotten it off his chest. “Keep it under your hat for a bit. They’re going to break it to the Fullers this evening.”

“You got room in your head for something else?”

“It’d be a pure pleasure to push this out for a while.”

Tucker leaned back against the hood of Josie’s car and told a tale of lipstick and adultery.

“Darleen and Billy T.?” Burke frowned as he thought it through. “I haven’t gotten wind of that.”

“Ask Susie.”

Burke sighed and nodded. “That woman can keep a secret, God knows. She was three months gone with Tommy before she told me. Worried I’d be upset because we were just scraping by. With Marvella being in love with Darleen’s brother, I can see how she’d keep it to herself.” Thinking, he jingled his keys. “The thing is, Tucker, I can’t go up to Billy T. about all this just because Darleen’s using the same kind of lipstick as Josie.”

“I know you’ve got a lot going on, Burke. Just figured I should pass it along.”

Burke gave a grunt of assent. They would lose the light soon, and God knew where Austin had gone to ground. “I’ll talk to Susie tonight. If it turns out Billy T.’s been seeing Darleen on the sly, I’ll make some time to feel him out.”

“Appreciate it.” But now that his duty was done, Tucker figured he would do some feeling out of his own.

The next morning, strung out after barely five hours’ sleep, Burke was spooning up corn flakes, worrying about having an armed escapee in his territory— they’d found the Buick ditched out on Cottonseed Road, and nobody was thinking Austin was in Mexico now. On top of that, there was the issue of whether he’d have to rent a tuxedo to give his daughter away.

Susie was already on the phone with Happy Fuller, and the two of them were mapping out wedding plans
with the intensity and guile of generals mounting a major campaign.

He was wondering how long the county sheriff would be on his back, when the screams and crashes from next door had him jumping to his feet.

Holy Christ, he thought, how could he have forgotten about the Talbots? By the time Susie came rushing in, Burke was already clearing the fence that separated the yards.

“You’ve killed him! You’ve killed him!” Darleen screamed. She was backed into a corner of the small, jumbled kitchen, pulling her hair. The elastic bodice of her shortie nightgown was drawn down, cupped beneath one white, jiggling breast.

Burke looked politely away from that to the overturned table, the splattered remains of soggy cereal, and the prone figure of Billy T. Bonny, who lay facedown in a pool of grits.

Burke shook his head and looked at Junior Talbot standing over Billy T. with a cast-iron skillet in his hand.

“I sure hope you didn’t kill him, Junior.”

“Don’t figure I did.” Junior put the skillet down calmly enough. “Only whacked him once.”

“Well, let’s take a look.” Burke bent down while Darleen continued to scream and yank at her hair. In the playpen, Scooter was raising the roof. “Just knocked him cold,” Burke said, taking in the sizable lump coming up on the back of Billy T.’s head. “Should probably get him over to Doc’s, though.”

“I’ll help you haul him.”

Still crouched, Burke glanced up. “You want to tell me what went on here, Junior?”

“Well …” Junior righted a chair. “Seems I forgot to tell Darleen something. When I came on back, I saw that Billy T. there had snuck into the kitchen and was forcing himself on my wife.” He shot Darleen a look that shut off her wailing like a finger on a switch. “Ain’t that right, Darleen?”

“I …” She sniffled, and her eyes darted from Burke to Billy T. and back to Junior. “That’s right. I—he
was on me so quick, I didn’t know what to do. Then Junior came back, and …”

“You go on and see to the baby,” Junior said quietly. He reached over with that same unruffled calm and pulled the pink rayon over her breast. “You don’t have to worry about Billy T. bothering you again.”

She swallowed and her head bobbed twice. “Yes, Junior.”

She rushed out and in a moment the baby’s wails turned to hiccoughing sobs. Junior looked back at Billy T. He was beginning to stir a little.

“A man has to protect what’s his, don’t he, Sheriff?”

Burke hooked his arms under Billy T.’s. “I expect he does, Junior. Let’s haul him out to my car.”

Cy was happy. It shamed him a little to be so happy when his sister had just been put in the ground and the whole town was whispering about his father. But he couldn’t help it.

It was almost enough just to be out of the house where his mother was sprawled, glassy-eyed with whatever pills Doc had given her, watching the
Today
show.

But it was better than just getting out of the house, better than walking away from the police car that sat in the yard waiting to see if his daddy would try to come home. Cy was going to work. And he was going in style.

His shoes kicked up dust and his lips whistled a tune. The prospect of walking and biking ten miles didn’t daunt him in the least. He was embarking on the Cy Hatinger Freedom Fund. The fund that was going to buy his way out of Innocence on his eighteenth birthday.

The four years stretched painfully long, but not as hopeless as they had been before he’d become a man of all work.

He like the title, and imagined himself with one of those business cards, like that Bible salesman from Vicksburg had given his mother last April. It would read:

Yes sir, he was on his way. By the time he was eighteen, he’d have saved enough to buy himself a ticket to Jackson. Maybe even New Orleans. Shitfire! He could go clean to California if he’d a mind to.